Vladimir Putin may have had an affair with sexy former spy Anna Chapman — which might have knocked the Russian president’s wife of 29 years out of the spotlight, Kremlin watchers say.

Putin, 59, is an ever-present figure in the Russian media but has been shown just twice with his 54-year-old wife, Lyudmila, in the last two years.

Ex-Manhattanite Chapman, 30, who was booted to Moscow in a 2010 spy swap, soon emerged as a key player in the pro-Kremlin Young Guard of United Russia, and later became a lingerie model/TV- show hostess/newspaper and magazine editor.

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied the existence of a Putin-Chapman romance, but the UK’s Daily Mail yesterday called it one of the leading explanations for the recent invisibility of Lyudmila Putin.